Recession-busting 25 per cent off

Microsoft is giving big customers discounts of up to a quarter on licensing of major server and communications software in an apparent reaction to the recession.

Customers on its Enterprise Agreement (EA) volume-licensing contracts have been given until July 3 to claim a 25 per cent discount on its licensing and Software Assurance (SA). Microsoft's volume licensing agreements target organizations with more than 250 PCs while SA runs in three-year cycles.

Separately, Microsoft has released a set of eight extensions to its Dynamics customer relationship management (CRM) software that are free for download. The Dynamics CRM Accelerators have been released under a Microsoft open-source license and cover - among other things - analytics, notifications, enterprise search and event management.

The downloads and price cuts come in the midst of Microsoft's online and TV-based advertising campaign encouraging business customers to continue their spending on software during the recession, rather than cut back.®